Looking for another crop like Mint

[T-Bird]

Hey all you happy gardeners!

I related in the diet board about how in 5 years - my only gardening success story is the mint I planted.....

Each year - it comes back more vigorous. Never needs any care, weathers the droughts, no insects or critters are interested. And it comes back quickly after clipping or frost!

Can any experienced in this suggest other crops of similar fortitude that I can plant and forget, and harvest in abundance years down the road?

Particularly interested in greens for green smoothie, but any carefree plant is considered!

Thanks!

[juliebove]

My parsley keeps reseeding itself from year to year. You might try that.

[T-Bird]

WOW! That would be so cool! I love parsley!


I've heard that parsley is biennial, Do you havest the leaves both years?


With your volunteers....do you let a couple of plants go to seed on purpose? Or do they all eventually have the flower/seeds? Even with taking the leafs?

[kaybee]

CHICKWEED
i dont know it well enough to know if it is strong enough to overtake all the other plants, but if you start with a clear spot, and put down chickweed, i bet it will do a pretty good job. really yummy too. it likes moistness though and seems to grow in partial shade too, as well as sun. dunno, its worth a try anyway

my lemon balm comes back year after year, then again i dont know where you are if it is a perrenial everywhere or not. its not nearly as pushy as the mint, lol, but it seems to exist fine with the mint. its not as abundant and doesnt spread nearly as quickly, but its nice. you could also get some different varieties of mint (CHOCOLATE mint), etc to mix things up a little.

also, ribwort plantain has taken over our garden field, and thats an edible when the leaves are small. not as good as mint tho!

nasturtiams will spread over an area too but they are too spicy to use in large amoutns. pretty though and you can eat the leaves and the flowers.

my calendula keeps reseeding itself, and you can use the petals in salads, but again, not as useful as mint

what about (some gardener is going to flog me for this, lol) DANDELIONS? they are really nutrient rich and dont take care!

oh wait and get THIS one!!: ive just been told you can eat LINDEN tree leaves. i went to learn from this foraging guy. the young leavews though, like in the spring. i dont know if you would find young leaves all summer. they are tender like lettuce, mild, and mucilaginous. i just found out we have a linden tree growing on the border of our garden! so i was eating them off the tree today. i just read somewhere, dont remember where, i think when i googled it, something about how you could get a linden and cut it back every year to make it put out more branches and thus have a crop within just a few years or whatever. check it out. :)

check out the plants for our future website; i think its www.pfaf.org though it might have changed .anyway, their home page has a link to "perrenial edibles". check it out. they are a great website.

WAIT! NO! I GOT IT! NETTLES!!! yeah you might think im nuts, but seriously, stinging nettles. they spread like mad, require no care, and dont sting if they are in a smoothie or otherwise blended. they are great dried for infusions too, and super nourishing to the adrenal glands. they are nutrient rich and on the list of nourishing herbs as well!!! and if you have to cook for your fam, they can also be cooked like spinach! mild tasking too. you can actually eat the tips raw if you roll them between your fingers to prevent stings, but juicing or blending is better. yeah NETTLES!!!!!!

you could also try planting sections of your yard wiht things like alfalfa and red or white clover. you wouldnt use these in as large amounts, but they are edible (alfalfa more than the other two i think)

ON THIS NOTE: when i was in spain, there were collards and kale growing that had stems half as thick as my wrist and were taller than me. they MUST have been older than just one year. i want to know how they get them to do that without going to seed..is it a special variety? im going to start a separate post on this.

[T-Bird]

Totally awesome Kaybee!

Can you tell me what chickweed tastes like? Good for salad?

How is calendula used - only the flowers? Or as a salad or smoothie veggie?


Not sure about the nettles.....I think we had those early on and they were painful to weed out

[kaybee]

OK look, the nettles ARE painful to weed out....but thats when you consider them weeds. when you start looking at them differently, as nourishing plants, and you find out all their benefits, its amazing how your view of them will change :) they are amazingly powerful. yes, they will still sting you even when you start viewing them differently :) although some people say if you grab them tightly and in the direction of the hairs, they wont sting, but i always still get stung. so, just harvest them with gloves. they spread by root and seed, so there is the possibility they will turn up elsewhere in your yard, but they dont seem to spread from seed like the plague or anything, they seem to spread maybe a random plant from a seed, but then into patches from the roots. maybe you could contain them to one corner of the yard by burying a wooden barrier a foot deep or something, i dont know; we dont bother becuase its a garden not a backyard, so there are alot of weeds that just sort of spread, and frankly im thankful for the ones like nettle. every time i do this neat "self-testing thing" (ok i tried to link it, if anyones interested, but computers too slow. www.healingwiseforum.com healingwise and plant allies forum, search for self-testing) with nettle, i almost always get a positive response. i use it mostly for strong infusions cuz i dont liek green smoothies. OK i tried to link to the benefits, but again, dodgey internet or something. www.healingwiseforum.com, healingwise and plant allies forum, one plant at a time series, NETTLES. but you can do them juiced or in green smoothies, the bugs and critters dont bother em, and their nutritionally rich. previously, i would have cringed like you did if some suggested planting nettles on purpose; my previous experience of them was going out to pick blueberries as a kid and always getting "gotten" by the nettles, but now, especially now when i am trying to use as many wild foods as i can, both to save money and becuase the slugs in this country are literally trying to take over the world and destroying all the cultivated stuff, and because of my challenged adrenals, i think they are a hero food :) the flavor, if they are blended or in teas, is mild, deep, and almost slightly sweet, not bitter or spicy. so i would give them a corner of my yard if i wanted a low maintenance, high nutrition, perrenial crop, insane as it sounds.

now the chickweed: its really nice. it took me a couple times of trying it before i really liked it, but it really grew on me. it just tastes GREEN, kind of grassy, but its fairly tender, its very mild, and it makes a KILLER pesto. like the kind that you want to lick the blade of the food processor to get every last bit (yes i have done it) lol. AND, depending on your climate, I have heard it may continue to survive through the winter. it reseeds like mad, apparently it spreads, and it also spreads not only from seed but also from cuttings sometimes; ie. if you trim it and let the pieces fall on the ground, these sometimes take root too! theres more info on it in the plant at a time series that i mentioned above in regards to nettles. the only thing i have seen about chickweed, and i have only ever seen it in one source, is that it shouldnt be used by pregnant women. and i also read that it shoudl be used in small amounts. but i only read this in one place and the herbalists at healingwise forums talk about munching it by the bowlful, so im not really concerned about eating too much of it. i would ask the people at healingwiseforum though, they seem knowledgeable about this stuff. all plants have some "toxins" in them; thats why we rotate our greens! oh and its also supposed to be a fat-buster; thins the cell membranes and runs in and grabs the fat (ok thats simplified, but). its high i think in vitamin C and some other stuff. yes its good for salad, especially a "just chickweed" salad, with garlic lemon olive oil salt, though i much prefer it as a pesto (basically, blend the salad ingredients, lol). yesterday i gave some to a family i know, and tonite she tried it and chopped it on her baked potato and said it was really nice and tender. GO CHICKWEED !! (sorry its my FAVORITE right now. though the linden leaves are really nice too. actually my fav is ramps= broadleaf garlic, but that seems pretty rare and it wont take over your yard like you want too bad)

yeah, calendula isnt really that useful, i dont think you can use the greens. and its really more of a medicinal herb that anything else. its pretty in salads, but you wouldnt use large amounts,and you probably wouldnt use it every day. its good for making salves and ointments and stuff, skin soothing, and the flowers are pretty and abundant; they went through the winter here even, still producing new ones! (but we get the gulf stream so we have kind of mild climate) and they are good for cutting some to brighten up the house too. but they are not a green-smoothie superstar; cant use the greens as far as i know.

i know the linden tree thing sounds strange, but they ARE good... wish i knew about the nutritional value though im eating some in my sammich right now. with chickweed pesto. on russel james' nut free bread. last time i put some cashew mayo on too and it was to die for!

[T-Bird]

i know the linden tree thing sounds strange, but they ARE good... wish i knew about the nutritional value though im eating some in my sammich right now. with chickweed pesto. on russel james' nut free bread. last time i put some cashew mayo on too and it was to die for!

Sounds Awesome!

I am so excited about my little weed patch now!

Weeds are welcome! So long as they are tasty and nutritious!

[kaybee]

whoa! check this out! not totally relevant, but still cool!

Making 'Wild Linden Chocolate"

The linden (or European Lime) tree is a native to Europe and North America. It's a very versatile tree and it has a whole range of culinary uses (here you can learn about the linden tree and its edible uses). One of the most remarkable is a chocolate substitute you can make from the fruit.

The linden tree (any of the species Tilia x europaea, Tilia cordata, Tilia platyphyllos, Tilia americana etc) has fruit that contain nut-like seeds. These have a range of essential oils and many of these have properties that make them taste like chocolate. All children living near linden trees will know of this 'tree chocolate' and this was a well-known property of linden fruit.

As the fruit matures and hardens the chocolate flavour becomes lost. As a result, it is possible to dry and grind linden fruit as a coffee substitute that tastes a little like coffee with a little hot chocolate added it's nowhere near as strong in chocolate taste as the immature fruit.

It wasn't until the 18th century that people began to experiment with linden fruit to try and make something more palatable from it. As a result, the French chemist, Missa discovered that by grinding the immature fruit of linden trees with dried linden flowers he could obtain a product that had an aroma similar to chocolate.

This seemed like a very exciting discovery and the process was tentatively commercialized in Prussia (what is now Germany, the heartland of where the European linden or lime tree grows). However it was soon discovered that the product did not keep well and the large-scale production of 'linden chocolate' was quickly dismissed. Indeed, the recipes and secrets of how the chocolate was made was almost completely lost in the mists of time and only recently have Missa's processes come to light.

Nothing will induce linden chocolate to develop a long shelf life, but it's possible today to make linden chocolate in small batches and freeze for later use (it will still denature and lose its chocolatey flavour quite quickly though). If you are going to make it then I suggest you dry linden flowers and freeze whole immature linden fruit for later use. You can then make the product on the day you want to use it and you can capture it's amazing aroma.

Here is the process you will need to make linden chocolate:

500g immature linden tree fruit (with stalks removed)
40g dried linden flowers
a little grape seed oil

Grind the linden flowers to a powder and set aside. Meanwhile pound the linden tree fruit to a paste in a pestle and mortar (or a food processor). Mix the linden tree fruit with the dried linden flowers and add just enough grape seed oil to make a manageable paste. This is best used the same day but can be kept for a few days by freezing in the refrigerator.

If you want a recipe using this product then the Celtnet Recipes Archive has a recipe for Linden Chocolate Mississippi Mud Pie. I've also found a blog with a recipe for a Linden Leaf Porridge.

There are also tens more recipes including many other parts of the linden tree in the Celtnet Wild Foods Recipes pages (you also get hundreds of recipes for other wild foods here!

[cavany]

I was given a load of sea spinach recently and a root and apparently this will grow anywhere. The leaves I juiced which were very tasty and the root I have planted and am watching its progress.

[juliebove]

WOW! That would be so cool! I love parsley!


I've heard that parsley is biennial, Do you havest the leaves both years?


With your volunteers....do you let a couple of plants go to seed on purpose? Or do they all eventually have the flower/seeds? Even with taking the leafs?

I planted my crop in 2005. It has reseeded itself every year. Currently I have a HUGE amount of it growing UNDER my deck. I guess the seeds fell down there. I have it planted in Earthboxes. This year I replanted the box because it was everywhere but where I wanted it to be.

[kaybee]

cavany--wow--the sea spinach will grow anywhere? it doesnt need the salt water tides? i have been collecting it from the beach but maybe i will try some in my garden. i think i will try it from seed though when they go to seed cuz i dont want to kill one by digging it up for the roots. its good for eating too. less bitter than chard and "meatier" than spinach. roll it up and cut into fine strips for a salad with sesame dressing. its a variety of chard from what i understand but i cant stand chard and i like this stuff

t bird--re: the nettles: do you have a less-used area of your yard, like behind a shed or anything? this might be a good place to stick nettles as they will be out of your way and using a space that otherwise woudlnt get used...

I wish i had julieboves luck with parsley. i cant even get the seed to grow even when i soak it overnight in warm water as instructed on package and try to start in the greenhouse bad seed i guess